


Painting in Livid Green

by YellowBlue



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: A little bit of fluff, A little bit of pining, Jealousy, John's Journal, M/M, Mary-Beth thinks it's a romantic love story, Maybe - Freeform, Pre-Relationship, She's wrong though, The kiss between Charles and Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 03:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18438143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowBlue/pseuds/YellowBlue
Summary: The news that Arthur has a new lover who happens to be a French painter doesn't sit well with John. Not because he doesn't want Arthur to be happy, but because keeping a journal filled with notes, memories and little sketches was something only he had shared with Arthur until now.





	Painting in Livid Green

"I think Arthur has a lover!"

 

John froze when he heard Mary-Beth's words and Tilly's hushed gasp of delighted curiosity. Now this was something he hadn't expected to hear, not with the ink being almost still wet on Mary Gillis' letter that was lying in Arthur's room.

 

John didn't move when Tilly hushed Mary-Beth to make sure that nobody was listening in on them. Luckily she didn't spot him standing behind one of the camp wagons, hidden from view but able to hear every word that the two women exchanged.

 

"Have you seen her? Who is she? Oh, Mary-Beth, you have to tell me everything!" Tilly urged and John could hear the rustling of her dress as she moved closer to Mary-Beth.

 

John knew he should leave. This was non of his business and he shouldn't even care if Arthur decided to take some girl as his lover, but he found himself rooted to the spot, his hands still clasped around the small wooden crate he had planned to carry to the camp fire.

 

"Arthur told me when he came back today. You can't tell anyone else, promise me, Tilly." Mary-Beth sounded like she was bubbling over with excitement even though she tried to keep her voice low. It was like the news of Arthur finding a new sweetheart was too much to stay bottled up inside her.

 

Tilly sounded equally thrilled now. Her voice took on a higher note than usual and she almost stumbled over the words when she spoke: "I do! I promise! Now tell me more!"

 

John felt a rush of anticipation even as he realized that he couldn't share her elation about the news that Arthur had found someone. There was a sudden unpleasant, icy-hot weight inside John's stomach, it felt like a fist had grabbed his insides and pulled. He should really leave, just turn around and ignore what two women were talking about. Instead he put the crate down and leaned against the wagon, making sure that nobody could see him standing there eavesdropping on the conversation of the two women.

 

"It's not a her, it's a he!” Neither she nor John missed the small shocked gasp from Tilly. “A French painter. Arthur had saved him from a violent mob in Saint Denis. They tried to shoot or beat him or something dreadful like that just because they didn't like his paintings, the poor man." Of course her sympathies were with the artist. Mary-Beth knew just too well how it felt to be mocked and ridiculed for trying to create something that other found a waste of paint or in her case ink and paper.

 

"Thank God Arthur was there to save him." Tilly added and John fought the urge to roll his eyes. Leave it to Arthur to be the gallant hero, riding into town to rescue the artist in distress. Of course it had to be some cliché, sappy love story between him and that painter. He wondered how someone who played around with brushes and paint could get into any kind of serious trouble in the first place that they needed an outlaw like Arthur to save them.

 

“I think they got along pretty well,” Mary-Beth continued her story. “They even went to an art exhibition together and Arthur told me they had kissed inside the post office in Saint Denis today. In the middle of the day, imagine that!" Tilly's delighted giggle mixed with Mary-Beth's sentimental sigh and John almost felt disgusted by their enthusiasm and the way they were gushing about Arthur's affair. A kiss didn't mean anything, John shouted inside his head, ignoring the resentful and bitter feeling inside his heart that was getting stronger and stronger.

 

"The people around them must have seen everything!" Mary-Beth continued with a swooning voice. "But Arthur and the painter didn't care. Wrapped in each other's embrace, their heated lips pressed together, their hearts beating in unison. Isn't that romantic?" Mary-Beth ended her improvised love story with a long sigh and John could hear the two women trying to stifle their giggles.

 

John had heard more than enough. The cold and burning tightness in his stomach was slowly spreading through his chest and he didn't even want to hear one more word about what Arthur and this painter were doing.

 

He left the women to their gossip and chatter and went to Old Boy who was already nickering impatiently, waiting for his daily sugar cube and some grooming. John retrieved his journal from one of the saddle bags after he was done with his horse and joined his fellow gang members by the camp fire. He still tried to ignore the clenching knot inside his stomach and the burning feeling inside his chest. He shouldn't care, especially since he coulnd't change any of it.

 

No one took any interest in John when he opened his journal and scribbled down a couple of words before his gaze fell upon one of his amateurish drawings. With an angry huff he ripped the page out of his journal and tossed the piece of paper into the fire.

 

Arthur had a lover. Mary-Beth's words still lingered in his mind. He clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt.

 

Arthur and the painter. This was probably a good thing. The man deserved someone who cared for him and who he could care for. It meant he was finally getting over Mary Gillis who had broken Arthur's heart so many times that he was surprised Arthur still knew how to love with it. It was even better that he had found someone who shared his interests. A professional artist, a painter who accompanied Arthur to exhibitions and who obviously had no qualms about kissing him in broad daylight was definitely better than anyone Arthur could have found here at camp.

 

And yet John just couldn't find it in him to be happy for his brother in arms.

 

Arthur's eye for the small and beautiful things in life was something nobody really appreciated and he wondered if this French painter did. Even though John tried his hand at drawing from time to time he knew he wasn't even remotely talented. He also knew there wasn't anything else he had in common with with the older man, except maybe for the robbing and killing of innocent people. So he tried to draw whatever he saw and found and it really wasn't his fault that his snapping turtles looked like hunchbacked dogs with stumpy legs. He really tried! It wasn't like he was hoping to become as good at drawing and sketching as the other man, he only wanted to be able to see the world a bit more with Arthur's eyes.

 

John ripped another page out of his journal when he discovered another of his unskillful drawings, the ripping sound was oddly satisfying, like he was tearing a bad or painful memory out of his mind.

 

“What're you doing, Marston?” Arthur voice cut through his thoughts as the older man sat down next to him, his own journal and a bottle of beer in his hands. John wondered if he would return to Saint Denis later that night, back to his lover.

 

"Nothing, just getting rid of useless stuff." John replied as he crumpled up the page and threw it towards to fire only to have it bounce off the end of a half burned log and roll back towards him. Before he could pick it up Arthur had already grabbed the ball of paper and started to unfold it.

 

With an almost inaudible sigh John waited for the mocking comment or at least a dismissive snort that would surely come when the dark blond cowboy saw what he had tried to to get rid of. Instead Arthur straightened out the creases a bit more before he took his own pen and started to draw on the wrinkled paper.

 

"Look here. Just use shorter strokes, like this," explained the dark blond cowboy as he added a couple of soft lines. "And make this a bit rounder." John could hear the scratching noise of the graphite pen on paper. He wasn't looking at the sketch that probably became a small masterpiece under Arthur's hands, he was looking at them man's face.

 

“Want me to take a look at some of your other drawings?” Arthur asked and when John looked down at the wrinkled piece of paper that the older man had flattened out on the leather binding of his own journal he saw that his drawing of a duck looked more like a proper animal now and less like a misinformed stone and the snake looked no longer like a lost shoelace in tufts of grass.

 

John handed him his journal without saying anything. He watched as Arthur opened it, a small frown appearing on his face as he let his fingers linger on the last page. Only after a couple of seconds John realized what the older man was staring at.

 

 _'Arthur had kissed a French painter in Saint Denis today'_ was penned down as a quick note in his scraggly handwriting. It was the only line he had written in his journal today and it was hard to miss since the sentence was the only note on the whole page. John almost bit his tongue. He hadn't meant for Arthur to see this.

 

"Heard about that, uh?" The older man asked with a chuckle and John tried to look nonchalant and unfazed, even though he wanted nothing else than to bury his face in his hands with embarrassment and shame.

 

Arthur looked at him then, his blue eyes lingering on John's and whatever he saw in his face was enough to let the wry grin on his lips melt into something gentler and warmer. He moved closer to John until their shoulders were touching before he turned to another page and continued to improve one of John's smaller sketches, ignoring the Evergreen bush that looked more like some kind of swamp monster than a representation of the local flora.

 

“The painter that kissed me today, his paintings are not exactly good and a lot of people are mad at him because of it,” Arthur said in a low voice. It wasn't like he was trying to explain why he had kissed the other man, it was more a general statement of meaningless facts. “I guess his unpopularity also has to do with him shitting on bar counters,” he finished with a mirthless grin. John didn't even want to ask what this was about.

 

They sat in silence for a while, Arthur drawing and John watching. The dark blond outlaw had a small smile on his lips when he turned to another page in John's journal and studied the tiny stick figure that even John could no longer identify. He looked relaxed, happy and content scribbling and drawing in his journal and John didn't even want to think about the French painter and that kiss anymore, even if it had Tilly and Mary-Beth giggle like school girls, because it seemed to be a lot less important to Arthur than the little, ugly pictures of birds and horses and flowers that John had put to paper.

 

John was fine with this. He was fine with sitting next to Arthur, their shoulders pressed against each other and John's journal between them. And even though it really didn't matter that Arthur had kissed the French artist who painted terrible pictures and had bizarre bathroom habits, John couldn't help but wonder if Arthur would kiss him for his awful drawings as well.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have any excuse for this OOC-ness.
> 
> And yes, Mary-Beth got it all wrong.


End file.
